Daily Times

Alia Bhatt was previously in talks with the production team for the three-part silver screen retelling of the story of Ramayana, but it was recently reported by Pinkvilla that Alia turned down the role. The report cited ‘date issues’ as the reason behind Alia’s withdrawal from the project that stars her husband and fellow Bollywood actor Ranbir Kapoor as lord Ram

According to an insider, Alia “was in talks for the role of Goddess Sita, but the collaboration did not work out because of date issues”. An ambitious project like Ramayana requires a lot of preparation and the pre-production workload has resulted in the shooting schedule being pushed back to 2024.

While Ranbir Kapoor has been finalized as the male protagonist of the film, director Nitesh Tiwari and producers of the film are still in the process of selecting actors for other important roles. Kannada star Yash of KGF fame is currently being considered and tested for the role of the antagonist Ravana.

It was previously rumoured that Yash had opted out of the film, but an inside source revealed that those rumours were false, and that the actor was still engaged in deliberation talks with filmmakers and had passed his initial look test for the villainous part.

The film was set to begin shooting in December of this year, but there has now been a change in the production timeline of the film. The production team of the film, which is slated to be the first installment in a trilogy, is now aiming for a mid-2024 release.